Grand Rapids and Fall River, till 1863, were one town, named Grand Rapids,
from the Grand Rapids of the Illinois, which washed its northern border. It now
embraces the Township 32 N., R. 4. There is a grove of timber along the creek on
Sees. 6 and 7, called Ebersol's Grove; the remainder of the town is prairie.
Covell creek rises near the southeast corner, and, running northwest, passes out
on S. 6. The high land or divides on the east and west sides of the town are
quite elevated, and have con. siderable descent to the creek and its branches,
in the center of the town, giving good drainage, a diversified surface, and a
more than ordinarily picturesque view to a prairie landscape.
The early settlements were nearly all on the only grove in the town, on Sees. 6
and 7.
Henry Hibbard came from Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1827, and made a claim on S. 5, in
1829, on what has been called the Ebersol farm. John McKernan bought the claim
of Disney, in 1831, who must have purchased of Hibbard. McKernan settled there
in 1831, and sold to Ebersol in 1834.
Joseph Ebersol, with Elizabeth Shuey, his wife, and family, came from
Harrisburg, Pa., and in August, 1834, purchased of Mrs. McKernan, her claim on
S. 5, and made that his home, till he died in 1873. His wife died in 1870. He
was a blacksmith by trade, though a farmer most of his life; he brought his
anvil and other tools to Illinois. Improvement was made on his farm in 1828;
orchard set in 1830. He left seven children: A. M., (see Fall River); Daniel,
(see Ottawa); Albert, in Grand Rapids; Catharine, married Michael Budd; Louisa,
married Geo. H. Rugg, now of Ottawa; Helen, married Edward Reed, of Grand
Rapids; Samuel was thrown from a horse, and killed, when 33 years old.
Eleazar Hibbard, came from Cincinnati, married a sister of Darius Reed, and
settled on S. 6. He separated from his wife, and either abandoned or sold his
claim and went to Putnam County.
Benjamin B. Reynolds, and wife, Elma Scofield, from Mifflin County, Penn., in
1835; settled on S. 6. His father. Judge David Reynolds, came with him and
assisted in opening his farm, and then returned to Pennsylvania. He still
occupies his old farm on Sees. 5 and 6, part being the claim of Hibbard. His
children are, Mary A., David, Pascalena, Eleanora, John P., Sarah E., James C,
Benjamin B., Jr., and Washington.
Luke Rugg, with his wife, Salome Patch, and family, from Lancaster, Worcester
County, Mass., settled on S. 23, in 1839. He was one of the Worcester colony,
started by Geo. W. Lee, John D. Thurston, Pyam Jacobs, and others. Mr. Rugg, at
the time of settlement, was four miles from timber and three miles from
neighbors, and after a residence of ten years neither timber nor neighbors had
approached any nearer, except a grove of locust about his place, known over the
county as Rugg's Grove.
Sick of seclusion from society and despairing of the settlement of that region,
Mr. Rugg moved to Ottawa in 1849, where he died. His children are: Lewis, who
came with his father's family in 1839; married Sophia Dimmick; lived a few years
in Ottawa, and is now in Pontiac. George H., lived with his father, till he
moved to Ottawa, in 1849. He invented and manufactured Rugg's Harvester, for
several years a popular and successful machine. He is now manufacturing
furniture in Ottawa. Charles went to Iowa.
John Anderson, a native of Ireland, came from Clinton County, N. Y., here in
1837; settled, with a family, on S. 6. . In 1849 he mysteriously disappeared,
and was never heard from afterward.
The prairie region of Grand Rapids, after 1850, rapidly settled, and the region
so long occupied by Mr. Rugg, and him alone, was, soon after he left it, teeming
with an active and well-to-do population. It is related that the settlement of
that town commenced at the north end and progressed south. The town was soon
made a school district, and a schoolhouse built in the northwest corner. Soon
after, that district was limited to four sections, named No. 1, and the
remainder made district No. 2, and a good house built; that district was then
limited to four sections in the northeast corner, and the balance of the town
made district No. 3, which at once voted a tax to build a school-house. This
process was continued till the last four sections in the southeast corner of the
town, having helped build all the school-houses in the other eight districts,
had to build their own without outside help. The houses were all very fine ones.
They were built by a tax on the real estate in the district, and by a vote of
the people who lived in all those instances mostly in the four sections, which
in the end composed the district, and as the remainder of the territory taxed
was nearly all owned by speculators, with no one residing on it, the voters were
very generous in voting a tax, or as some called it, "salting the specu lators."
One of those speculators who owned three sections in the last district,
complained of being legally fleeced. He said, " I have paid a liberal tax to
build nine different school-houses, better ones than are usually seen in older
sections of the country, and now three men settled on the one section I do not
own, vote a tax of ten or twelve hundred dollars, three-fourths of which I have
to pay. These Western men are ardent supporters of education." This last
statement of the building of school-houses may have been an exaggeration in this
instance, but similar cases did occur, and forcibly show the nature of the
contest waged between the settlers and those called land speculators. And where
the settlers made the laws and executed them, they frequently had the advantage.
Extracted from 1877 History of La Salle County Illinois, pages 451-454.
| Lee | DeKalb | Kane |
| Bureau |
 |
Kendall |
| Putnam | Grundy | |
| Marshall | Woodford | Livingston |
